QUIS CUSTODIET IPSOS CUSTODES
Means "Who Polices the Police?"
Local Edition

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune:

NOPD officer arrested for pandering, resigns job

A veteran New Orleans police officer resigned his position with the department after Kenner police arrested him during an undercover prostitution sting on Thursday afternoon.

Raynard Lyons, a 17-year veteran of the department, was booked with pandering after officers watched him drop off a prostitute at an undisclosed Kenner apartment building, Kenner Police Chief Steve Caraway said.

Caraway said Lyons had driven the woman to the spot after undercover detectives agreed to exchange sex for money. The connection was made through Craigslist.org, a popular advertising Web site.

More here.

Also from the Picayune:

2 deputies fired after woman says she had to expose herself

Two Jefferson Parish sheriff's deputies have been fired and one faces criminal charges after authorities say one of them forced a female motorist to expose herself and the other deputy did not report it.

Clyde A. Clarke, 45, of 438 Holy Cross Place, Kenner, was booked with malfeasance in office after authorities claimed he forced an unidentified 26-year-old woman to expose herself to avoid arrest on two occasions. Demond T. Ferguson, 24, 1740 Hampton Drive, Harvey, was fired by the Sheriff's Office but was not arrested.

Click here for the rest.

Yeah yeah, corrupt New Orleans, yadda yadda.

The point is that dismissing police misdeeds because of a popular perception of overall corruption is just about as short-sighted as dismissing cop misdeeds as "isolated incidents" or "a few bad apples." That is, cop corruption isn't limited to places like the Big Easy; indeed, it's all over the place, systemic, chronic, always in the newspapers, and the stuff we hear about is only when cops actually get caught--one must assume that the problem is far worse than the constant stream of reporting would suggest.

And these two cases from the New Orleans area are utterly typical. The first story shows a cop who was either so stupid, or so possessed of typical police self-righteousness, that he used frickin' Craigslist to solicit his hooker. Either way, stupid or perceiving himself as above the law, this is some lame shit. Like I keep saying, I'm on the fence as to the morality of prostitution, but it is illegal, and cops, above all other Americans, ought to obey the laws they've sworn to enforce.

The second story is also classic cop corruption. Yet another cop sees himself as an elite, above the law, able to do whatever he wants, just because he's a cop. His partner isn't really such a bad guy, but cop loyalty, the "code of silence," motivates him to look the other way.

This bullshit happens throughout the nation, again and again, every day of the year. Why the fuck don't people see that we have a big fucking problem?



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